Fire

I knew that we were going to have a hard time with Ezra when he was just two.  I gave him his first time out for an infraction I no longer remember. I put him in his crib without his blankie, and two hours later he was still there, refusing to say he was sorry. He sat in that crib, crossed his arms, and looked at me like he had it all figured out. He could do whatever the heck he wanted to as long as he was willing to tolerate our lame attempts at discipline.

When he was four, he had world class tantrums.  Kicking, biting, and screaming, Ezra could not calm himself down.  Sweat and tears pouring down both of our faces as I sat on top of him to keep him from hurting us, I would tell him about fire.

“Grandpa David has a lot of fire.  Mommy has a lot of fire.  And you have fire too.”

“Grandpa had fire?”  And he stopped kicking long enough to hear more.

“Yup.  We all do.  God gave you lots of fire.  Right now, you can’t control it.  But God is going to tame that fire and use it for something awesome.”

He would ask me lots of questions about our family history of fire.  I would tell him about my father smashing our television against the garage and about the rage I feel when things don’t go my way.  After some time, his body would go limp and he would let me rub his back while he cried out the last of his fury.

I would leave the encounters feelings like a great mother.  I knew my kid, and I knew how to help him.  Some day, probably as he was presenting me with a national award for great mothering, co-presenting the award with Michelle Obama and the spirit of Erma Bombeck, he would tell the story of how I sat on him and told him about the fire.

And that day may come.  But first he would have to forget about last Friday – Friday, his birthday, when I said these words: “You really need to stop.  Because if you keep pushing, I’m really gonna lose it and I’m gonna hurt you.  And then I’ll end up in jail and you’ll end up in foster care.”

Zach jumped up and urged, “Ezra, stop!  Mom’s gonna go to jail and you’re gonna go to foster care.”  Then looked back at me.  What’s foster care?”

I felt terrible.  I knew that manipulating Ezra was not going to have any real effect, at least not any positive effect.  But I was ready to hurt him.  Because all of that fire is less acceptable in my seven year old than it was in my four year old, and I don’t know what to do about it.

He spent the morning complaining that last year’s present was better, that his party would be awful since I refused to buy a pinata, that Zach lost the most important Lego piece. He punched and kicked Zach.  He was rude and disrespectful and rolled his eyes at me.  He laughed at me when I was losing my temper.

And I was a bad mother.  Growling and threatening and shaking my fists.

Since then, I’ve been wondering what will happen if God doesn’t channel all of that fire. What if Ezra turns out to be wild and disrespectful and mean?  And what if it’s my fault for not controlling my own fire? I recognize many of the ways this line of thinking is crazy. Still, I have a hard time letting it go and moving on to something more productive.

Because, while fire can sometimes turn a lump of clay into a beautiful vase or a lump of meat into a delicious hamburger, sometimes it just burns stuff down.